MORGAN HILL
– Responding to a vocal public, three City Council members
changed their minds Wednesday night and voted to build a new
library at the current Civic Center.
MORGAN HILL – Responding to a vocal public, three City Council members changed their minds Wednesday night and voted to build a new library at the current Civic Center.
After urging a wider review of future plans for the city-owned block, two remaining council members joined in, making the vote a unanimous 5-0.
After years of studies, reports and meetings, the Council voted against a downtown library, going instead with rebuilding the library at its current site.
The biggest surprise came from Mayor Dennis Kennedy and Councilman Steve Tate. Both men worked on the subcommittee report that recommended the downtown location because it would benefit, the report said, more of the town’s taxpaying citizens and attract more library users because of higher visibility downtown.
A 28,000 square-foot Civic Center library is currently slated to cost $14.3 million.
Kennedy and Tate clearly said on June 23 that they preferred the downtown site over the Civic Center site.
“I didn’t change sides,” Tate said Wednesday. “I’ll always be on the side of Morgan Hill.”
He said he still understands the benefit a downtown library would be to the town and to the library.
“It would increase the heart and soul of the community,” Tate said. “I would still prefer downtown, but I can’t keep supporting it in the face of the huge groundswell.”
After the June 23 public hearing, where the vote was delayed because of the absence of vacationing Councilman Greg Sellers, several citizens banded together to collect more than 1,000 signatures and organized a deluge of calls and e-mails to council members demanding that they choose the Civic Center site.
Council said they realized that even part of 1,000 signatures was a significant showing from the more than 40,000 residents in the library service area.
Tate said he worried about the reaction of the Civic Center proponents, far more vocal than the downtown fans who tended to speak at a lower level.
“There was an almost fearful amount of acrimony and rancor that got into this,” Tate said. “This has polarized to point where it almost scares me.”
Downtown Association President Lesley Miles said that, while some merchants spoke out in favor of the Third Street site, the association and most other merchants only encouraged the council to follow the city’s new Downtown Plan, which calls for mixed use.
Marguerite Sinnett urged Council to listen to the public.
“You represent all of us, not just the merchants or those looking for a handsome land deal,” Sinnett said.
A downtown library was expected to help draw people to area businesses and the community center. Downtown businesses were expected, in turn, to draw more people to the library. Council has always stressed that money spent at Morgan Hill stores adds sales taxes to the general fund which pays for all police and fire protection and recreation services.
Councilwoman Hedy Chang apologized to developer Rocke Garcia who owns a lot on East Third Street that was under consideration for the library. She said she had told him she would back the downtown site.
“We should reimburse Mr. Garcia for the $40,000 he spent (developing the site plan),” Chang said.
Several speakers claimed Garcia was offering the land to make money and would charge millions for the land at the end of a 20-year building and land lease, an arrangement that was not on the table Wednesday night. He said he offered the deal to help the city when it needed a new library but did not have enough funds to pay for it.
“I understand the council’s dilemma,” Garcia said. “As a citizen I hope you can listen to all citizens but we stand ready to do what you would like us to do.”
Kennedy said he thought it important that the people have a say in the decision and had wanted the site selection to be put on the November ballot, a move that would have cost the city $14,000.
Sellers, who will challenge Kennedy for the mayor’s position in November, strongly urged his colleagues to take a step back and decide what they wanted to do with the entire Civic Center site, which is in a prime residential area and could be sold for housing or turned into a park. Sellers and several other council members have toyed with the idea of eventually moving City Hall – and possibly the library too – to a more accessible location.
Councilman Larry Carr said he has always supported putting the library on the Britton Middle School campus. But when discussions with the school district fell through earlier in the year, the plan was abandoned. He, too, wanted to consider the big picture.
“We must think about this entire site before we invest $14 million and we haven’t had that dialogue,” Carr said. “Is this the 50-year horizon for City Hall?”
Civic Center fan Lamb said Thursday that the group would continue to work for the library.
“We want to make it an award-winning library,” Lamb said.
